The Trickster's Legacy
by Nightlock Runner
Summary: The Hoar Frost King has been defeated and the people of Dublin are waiting for the unseasonal snow to thaw. As the people living in the AWC world begin to rebuild again, a new face arrives and with it comes an all new kind of hell.


**All rights and respects to Karen Marie Moning for the hours of fantastic reading I've enjoyed.**

**This fanfic follows the Fever world at the end of ICED and crosses with the prior world established in the HIGHLANDER series. Hope people enjoy.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>"Was it necessary to put her through all that?"<p>

"Yes."

"But what they did to her? Christ! They tortured her!"

"To make her strong."

"If I'd known… I would have killed them myself."

"They're dead now anyways."

"Does it make you happy to toy with the lives of humans?"

There is a twinkling laugh. "How times have changed. I recall that, once upon a time, you thrived on toying with the lives of humans."

"I've changed."

"Yes… but blood is blood."

"What's the supposed to mean?"

"Your history was long and often bloody."

"That doesn't explain what you did!"

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Adam."

For the first time in centuries, Adam Black is speechless.

* * *

><p>The night air is cold and crisp in my lungs - it stings in my throat. It's June in Ireland and it shouldn't be as fucking cold as it is. Isn't this supposed to be the Emerald Isle? Things are supposed to be green and luscious. There shouldn't be drifts of snow tall as a building. But nothing surprises my anymore. Not since the Walls came down.<p>

What the fuck I'm doing in Ireland anyways is chaffing me. Two weeks ago I was in Wales, in the basement cell I called home for three years. And before that? Something cold rushes through my head and I can't think straight. That happens whenever I try to remember before. It's like my body is telling me that there was nothing before. I sprang into being four years ago a twelve year old girl in an overflowing orphanage. There wasn't anything before that. But there's been plenty since. Plenty I wish I could forget.

Dublin. I'm not even sure why I'm here. This is the worse place to be since the Walls fell. It's like Fae central. Something about this city draws them here. But the Fae have always been living legends in Ireland. Fairy hills dot the countryside. I suppose that, if the world had to go to hell in a hand-basket, Dublin was bound to be the epicenter. But that doesn't explain the pull I feel drawing me here. I don't want anything to do with the Fae - Seelie or Un.

"What the fuck am I doing?"

I stare out the windshield of my black Hummer at the city before me. It looks like a war-zone from the outskirts - but so does the rest of the world. Cars scatter the roadside, buildings crumble, I'm certain there's mounds of litter beneath the banks of snow. It's a post-apocalyptic world we're living in. But I've been living in this world for years longer than most of the humans left. They don't know what hell is.

Hell is not knowing who you are. Hell is seeing things that other people don't know are all around them. Hell is being someone else's weapon when you're too young to understand how the world works. Hell is being seen as an object rather than a person. Hell is being locked away from the world in a cage - someone's prized possession that they're afraid the world will take away from them. I've lived in hell as long as I can remember. And I'm never going back.

* * *

><p>"Drop the fucking sword!"<p>

I can't believe my fecking luck. Of all the people to get the drop of me, it had to be her. She's got me dead to rights, but I'll be damned if I'm dropping my sword. Not ever again. My fingers wrap tighter around the hilt.

"Make. Me."

Mac exhales a breath and I feel the point of the spear drop from my back. I dread turning around, knowing it's just an easier target for her to sink her spear into, but I'd rather face death than have it jabbed through my back. She doesn't object when I spin around and then I'm face to face with the last person on Earth I ever wanted to see again. Yet I can't make my lips stop quivering towards a smile, nor stop the fecking water building in my eyes. I'm such a baby. Fecking stop it!

Mac stares me down, silently her eyes rake over me. Taking in my whole appearance. I watch as her eyes soften and I'm taken aback. Is she trying to get me to let my guard down? Make me believe she still cares even a smidgen for me, tearing an extra piece out of me before killing me for killing Alina.

"You've been avoiding me," Mac says and I have to bite my tongue to keep from replying, "Duh." I've been avoiding her like the Unseelie Princes. Going anywhere near Mac is like certain doom, Dude. I'm not stupid. I just give her a look that says, Let's not play around. All right? You know what I did. Get it over with.

Mac's spear arm lowers all the way and she shakes her head at me. Her eyes have gone all soft and there's a sheen of tears in hers as well. Is she seriously not mad at me?

"How could I be?"

Everyone's a fecking mind reader! Ugh!

"What do you mean, 'How could I be?' I fecking led your twin sister to her death, Mac!" The words start pouring out of my mouth and I can't seem to turn them off. "I led her right to them and I didn't do anything to stop it. And then I kept it from you because you-" I snap my mouth shut. No. I'm not a little kid anymore. I'm not going to tell her that it felt good to have an older sister taking care of me. Because the Mega doesn't need anyone taking care of her. In fact, the Mega has had too many people of late trying to "take care" of her.

Mac shakes her head sadly. "Dani." It feels so good to have her say my name, but it stings too. I don't deserve any sympathy from her. I committed the worst act imaginable. "Tell me truthfully. Did you -want- to kill Alina?"

Did I want to kill Alina? I've never wanted to kill a human being ever in my whole whole life! Well, except maybe Ro and the Fae-obsessed humans at Chester's. But, never innocent humans! And Alina was innocent as they came. She didn't know anything about being a sidhe-seer. She was as helpless as a baby.

"Never." I shake my head. "But, that doesn't change the fact that I did."

Mac raises her empty hand and places it on my shoulder. I cringe as though she'd just stabbed me in the chest with the spear itself. Her comfort is as unexpected and painful as anything I've ever encountered before. Just like the night I returned to Chester's after Ryodan's death, the water-works turn on and I can't fecking turn them off.

"I forgive you, Dani. I did a long time ago."

I can't stop my jaw from quivering as the tears pour out of me. "How? Why?"

Mac is silent for a few short minutes, but it feels like an eternity stretching between us. Like she's searching for the right words to say. They never come. Barrons steps from the shadows and breaks up the touching moment. His brow is creased and his dark eyes search the sky as he sidles up to Mac and wraps her in his arms.

"Just accept it, Kid. Come on, we need to get out of here."


End file.
